The Football Association of Ireland have formally announced a joint bid with England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales to host the 2028 European Championships.
The initial aim of the UK and Ireland hosting the 2030 World Cup has been abandoned with the five FAs deciding to “focus solely” on the Euros.
"Following an extensive feasibility study, which assessed the potential opportunities in international football, the football associations of the Republic of Ireland, England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales have agreed to focus on a bid to host Uefa Euro 2028, the third largest sports event in the world," read an FAI statement.
CONFIRMED | Republic of Ireland & UK nations to bid for EURO 2028
— FAIreland ⚽️ (@FAIreland) February 7, 2022
Following an extensive feasibility study, we have agreed to focus on a bid to host UEFA EURO 2028, the third largest sports event in the world#EURO2028 | #WeAreOne | #WeAre100 pic.twitter.com/YEQFghLBUo
“The feasibility study included an analysis of the economic impact, the political football landscape and likely costs of hosting major international tournaments.”
UK prime minister Boris Johnson last year pledged £2.8 million for a feasibility study into the UK and Ireland hosting the 2030 World Cup.
The FAI stated that the Euros offers a similar return on investment to a World Cup with “the European tournament carrying a far lower delivery cost and the potential of the benefits being realised sooner. We continue to collaborate with our government partners of Ireland and the UK about the next steps.”
The Irish government are expected to financially support the bid, along with a range of infrastructural improvements, that includes approaching the GAA for the use of Croke Park and possibly a redeveloped Casement Park in Belfast.
The Aviva stadium will certainly be part of the six to eight matches held in the Republic of Ireland.
Croke Park
"Both we and the Irish Government are extremely excited at the possibility of the bid and are working closely together to make sure that we maximise value from it," said Jonathan Hill, the FAI chief executive, who also confirmed the GAA have been approached to rent out Croke Park.
“We’re in the process of talking with our own Government and we await to see from Uefa exactly what the bidding process will be in relation to the number of stadia needed,” Hill explained. “We also need to find out if it’s a 24 or 32 team tournament before we take those decisions. But obviously both Croke Park and Aviva Stadium would be in our thinking.
“We talk to (the GAA) on a regular basis anyway. That was part of the initial discussion (for the 2030 World Cup). We’ll wait to see what the parameters from Uefa are in terms of stadia number and matches.”
Uefa will supply bid requirements to the FAI on March 30th but Northern Ireland’s home venue of Windsor Park in Belfast cannot be included as it only holds 18,500, and the minimum capacity requirement is 30,000. This indicates that the Irish FA are potentially part of a bid that will bring no games to Northern Ireland.
“We know our stadium, the national football stadium at Windsor Park, doesn’t meet the requisite capacity for the Euros but we also understand that being part of the bid brings a massive range of benefits to Northern Ireland,” said Patrick Nelson, the IFA chief executive. “We love the Euros and 2016 was fantastic for us. The women’s Euros in England in a few months will be fantastic as well.
“We want to be a major part in this and we want to play a full part,” Nelson continued. “We will work with our partners to be in a position to host matches here in Northern Ireland and we look forward to driving it forward in the coming months and years.”
When asked about the redevelopment of Casement Park - a project that is currently under judicial review due to objections from residential associations - Nelson responded: “We are absolutely keen to play a full part and we want to host games in Northern Ireland. We know we have to work with partners, primarily government partners, to make sure we have a stadium that is capable of doing that.
“We’re in a position as of last week that we don’t have the executive office operating, first minister and deputy first minister,” said Nelson of the collpase in power sharing at Stormount. “Presuming they won’t come back before the Assembly election coming up then we’re clearly going to work with the government partners as we have been doing for the last few years.
“We have some regional funding that is hopefully still in the pipeline, still in the mix and we’ll be working with the government in Northern Ireland to make sure that comes through.
“But we’re very keen to host games, clearly. We’re not along for the ride. We want to be a full part of the bid and we’ll be talking to everybody that we need to going forward.”
The UK-Ireland bid has to submit 10 stadiums, one of which one must have 60,000 seats, preferably another two have 50,000 capacities, four with 40,000 and three with 30,000. Casement Park, if redeveloped in time, would hold 34,000 but the Euros could still clash with the Ulster football championship.
Violence
It's unclear how much impact the violent scenes at Wembley during the rescheduled Euro 2020 final will impact a bid that is up against Turkey and a potential joint bid from Romania, Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia.
The full list of bidders will be announced on April 5th before it is wittled down to a short list on April 12th, 2023 with Uefa announcing the winners in September 2023.
Hill, Nelson, the FA chief executive Mark Bullingham, Scottish FA chief executive Ian Maxwell and Welsh FA chief executive Noel Mooney held a joint press conference over Zoom on Monday morning with Mooney, the FAI’s interim chief executive back in 2019, bullishly confident of a successful bid.
“We have a saying here in Wales of ‘together is stronger’ and bringing five nations together in UEFA is special, it’s almost a 10th of the Uefa membership of 55 members,” said the former Cork City goalkeeper. “It’s an extremely strong bid and we know from the feasibility study that we have got a great chance of winning this .
“You’re right to say that there has been a chequered past in terms of bid history but we are really confident going into this process that we will clearly have the best bid.”
